Cookbook Review: Cook's Illustrated Cookbook

The ultimate comprehensive cooking primer for the beginner and expert alike.

With the holidays coming, everybody has several people on their list that are impossible to gift. Not this year. You can finish early. Just buy several of these babies and give your inner Santa a rest.

Nobody else does the excellent job of testing and "the science" of cooking that CI does. I have been a fan for many years of all their variations: America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Country and Cook's Illustrated.  They are always logical, well presented and sound if somewhat fussy at times. Who else will test the same recipe 20 times? They are a national treasure.

Cook's Illustrated has produced many wonderful cookbooks. I own many of them but if you must get just one, this is it. With 2000 recipes from the last 20 years of Cooks Illustrated all beginning with "Why This Recipe Works" , it gets you in the spirit to cook. If you want to roast a chicken, you have.... I lost count but pages and pages of choices. With those classic black and white drawings, you get just the information you need. No photos here but just solid reliable information.

Start with a Table of Contents in the front that is actually useful. It lists all the recipes with their variations and page number. As is usual with CI, the names of the recipes actually tells you what it is. I hate the cookbooks that gives fancy names to everything that means nothing. The Index is equally useful as is usual for CI.

This is not new material and if you have all the back issues and other cookbooks, I'll almost sure you have all these recipes. Now I dare you to find them and get them organize in a logical and useful manor. I can't.

Warning: if you or your receiving cook must have color pictures with the recipes, this book is not for you. If you want utility and a book that will still be used in 30 years, this is your book. I declare this an instant classic.

For about $26 you get 4 pounds and 928 pages and it's all great. A wonderful bargain.

Notes: I got mine as a present. No review copy here.

Apple Cinnamon Scones

It's apple season and what could start your day better than an apple-cinnamon scone. One apple with a little work and you're the hero of breakfast. Easy and quick.

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Simple Everyday Roast Chicken with Gravy

This is very close to that "ideal" recipe of just throw something in the oven and have it come out great. Based on a Cooks Illustrated recipe called Weeknight Roast Chicken. I took the technique and added some of my 7:2:1 garlic season and got a recipe you can do on a weeknight or for Sunday dinner for the family.

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Carrot Cake Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

My wife thinks this is one of the best things I have ever made and she may well be right . It is right up there with my Whole Wheat Buttermilk Blueberry Cream Cheese Scones.  An evil treat that I could almost live on. Plus all major food groups are included: Grains (flour and oats) Fruits (raisins) Vegetables (carrots) Dairy (cream cheese) and Meat (eggs count).  It must be good for you (NOT).

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Butter and Garlic Stuffed Bone-in Skin-on (Split) Chicken Breast

A crispy bone-in skin-on chicken breast (AKA split chicken breast) stuffed with butter and garlic. Great taste and the most moist roasted chicken you have ever had.

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Old Fashion Vegetable Beef Soup

Wonderfully simple old fashion soup packed with taste and good for you too. A great fall or winter meal for just the two of you (with left overs) or for the family.

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How to Cook Bacon in the Oven

Love bacon but hate the mess? Here's the foolproof, easiest, no mess way to have that most unhealthy of treats. Just slam it into the oven. Yep, cooking bacon is that simple and easy. Bake it. What a recipe... And you have been suffering for all these years.

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